Bobby Orr
Robert Gordon Orr (b. March 28th 1948 in Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada) is a retired professional defenceman who played in the National Hockey League for the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks. He is widely considered as one of the best hockey players ever. Orr displayed very high skills at a very young age. He was signed by the Boston Bruins as a twelve years old; he reached the Ontario Hockey Association two years later, playing against players who were 18, 19 and 20 and did just as fine as them. He led the Oshawa Generals to the OHA championship; the following year, his final as a junior (NHL rules stated that players had to be 18 to join the league), Orr averaged an incredible 2 points-per-game, which is especially special since he was a defenceman. Orr won the Calder Memorial Trophy in his first season in the league, 1966-67. He would go on the following season to win the first of eight straight Norris Trophies, despite only playing 46 games due to a knee injury, the same kind of injury that would haunt him for the remainder of his career. In 1969-70, he doubled his point production from previous season and finished atop the league's scorers; he became the first, and so far only, defenceman to be awarded the Art Ross Trophy given to the league's top scorer. That season, besides that trophy and the Norris, he also clinched his first of three straight Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's MVP, and the Conn Smythe Trophy at the end of the playoffs to mark his outstanding play - he is the only player to have won four major trophies in one season in the NHL. In 1970-71, he finished second in league's scoring, while playing for the stars-loaded Bruins, he established still unbroken records for points in a season by a defenceman and for the best plus/minus ratio for any position (+124). The next season, he would win a second Stanley Cup, as well as another Conn Smythe. The Bruins offered Orr at the end of 1976 one of the most lucrative contracts ever, a deal that included 18% ownership of the Bruins. However, his agent, Alan Eagleson,falsely told him that the Chicago Black Hawks had made him an even better offer; he also voluntarily omited to mention Orr about the ownership parts the Bruins offered. Thinking he was choosing the better side, Orr signed with Chicago. The lie was made public years later; it has been showed that Eagleson, who was also executive director of the NHLPA, frequently colluded with owners he favoured, in an effort to keep player salaries down. In this case, Eagleson had good relations with the Black Hawks owner, Bill Wirtz, and cheated in his advantage. It didn't pay off however for Wirtz and the Black Hawks as Orr, terribly diminished by the serious knee injuries he had to live with, only played 26 games as a Black Hawk over the course of three seasons, following which he retired in 1979. After his retirement, the NHL waived the three-years mandatory waiting period for him and he was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He later helped exposing the crimes of Eagleson, for which the later was sentenced to 18 months in jail (but only served 6). Orr, Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr, Bobby